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maxxxine (2024) is a disappointing conclusion to a promising franchise. there's a lot of good things about it, sure: the visuals, the cinematography, the clear giallo influences, the first act overall is all pretty solid. but there's an overwhelming amount of bad things: the pretentious self referential nods to other, arguably better horror movies, the underutilizing of mia goth - who is an incredible actress, as shown when maxine auditions for her role, and then never again -, the script feels like it needs to be edited down a bunch, and the film would probably benefit from not having sam levinson as a producer, but that's just my personal vendetta against him. the third act is ... definitely something. i was expecting the twist but i wasn't expecting it to be so badly acted and pulled off. the actor who plays maxine's dad was overdoing it in a way that didn't even feel intentional, it just felt like bad acting. and as fellow maxxxine hater @horrorlesbians mentions in their review video, the preacher being the villain feels unbelievable and a massive plot hole considering his character in x (2022), and it's also just incredibly uninteresting from a narrative standpoint.

a personal gripe is the constant needle drops and reminders that THIS IS THE NINETEEN EIGHTIES!!! got really boring after about twenty minutes. also there was no need for the emphasis on the night stalker. what the fuck did that add to the plot? i'll give it half a star for kevin bacon giving it his all as the P.I., but overall it's a two and a half star movie. i'd rather watch puritan II than this shit.

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people can easily proclaim lolita (1997) to be pedophilic filth, and while that position is valid and i can certainly see where they might be coming from, the same was said of nabokov's book when it was published. lolita is continually misconstrued as a pro-pedophilic love story, but we must remember to read between the lines. i think this adaptation is extremely loyal to the original text, especially in the fetishistic way the camera follows dolores - we must remember, after all, that the camera in this film is the ultimate example of the male gaze: it is humbert humbert's gaze, and he is a wolf eyeing a lamb. the close up fetishizing shots of dolores' features - legs, feet, mouth, hands - are perfect translations of the way humbert writes about her in the book. i do think lolita only really works as a written medium because it's meant to be h.h. narrating, and subsequently defending, his crimes, but visually this film translates nabokov's prose very well through dreamy filters, wide shots articulated with extreme close ups and frankly incredible acting from jeremy irons. it's very faithful how this film sexualises the innocent, childish actions of dolores haze. her undressing in humbert's car when they leave the camp shouldn't be a problem, shouldn't be a sexualised thing, this is a 12 year old who is his step daughter, and yet the way the camera lingers on her is exactly how humbert's eyes linger - sexualising, fetishising. the same thing happened when we meet clare quilty for the first time - she's just a kid, crawling on her hands and knees to talk to a dog, and yet we feel perverse watching it. this film makes you feel dirty, as does reading lolita, that is the whole point. it puts you in the shoes of the predator, it is not an objective view but a very very subjective one. lolita is easily dismissed as gross, pedophilic wank, and it's fair to say that if you haven't read the book and you don't understand where it's coming from. the film doesn't start with the same framing device as the book, it doesn't tell us this is a (very fictionalised and romanticised) confession by a man who has been imprisoned for murder (and not, unlike you would believe, child kidnapping and molestation).

i don't think this is a perfect adapatation of lolita, because i do not think that it is necessarily a work that needs a visual adaptation - it was fundamentally misunderstood as a text, and even more so as a film. i think that this film is even more so easily misunderstood than the book mostly because of how highly romanticized the imagery is. humbert is purple prosing his way through what is for all effects and purpose a horror story, and when you don't understand his objective point of view, you lose the context of that romanticization. to me, this film is a twin flame with guadagnino's call me by you name, another story of grooming romanticized by one of the participants, and subsequently misunderstood by audiences as being pro-grooming. i've often said that call me by your name, especially the book, is lolita if dolores were the narrator. it's a good double bill if you want a depressing evening with two 2 hour movies.

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anyway huge day for me

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did i forget to write anything for this blog because of college... teehee... maybe....

never fear i will return

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you all need to watch talk radio (1989) by oliver scott RIGHT NOW

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i cannot stop thinking about the fight scene in eastern promises (2007), dir. david cronenberg. watching it in a lecture hall with 50 of my peers felt wrong because it feels so... pornographic to watch.

the scene is set in a london bath house, a placed used for "business meetings" by the russian gangsters we follow throughout the movie. nikolai, played by viggo mortensen, a few years off from playing aragorn in lord of the rings, is covered in tattoos, his body lean, sweaty, covered by only a towel once he enters the sauna. two men approach him, fully clothed in all black; they're there to kill him. but this isn't the pornographic aspect. this is just the setup to a fight scene, right? as they approach, we see that nikolai has removed the towel from around his waist. he's naked, vulnerable.

the fight scene that ensues is horrific, gruesome, drawn-out and difficult to stomach: but i couldn't pull my eyes away. there's no dramatic, action-packed music to accompany the stabbing and blows the three men deal to each other. just skin on skin, blade to skin, the sound of a knife breaking flesh. this isn't the exaggerated masculinity of a marvel movie fight, it isn't glamourized. it's grotesque; it's erotic. and those can be different sides of the same coin, especially when it comes to cronenberg. nikolai writhes and groans as he fights these two men to the death, and when the final blow is dealt they groan in unison, in release; in a sick sort of climax. the whole scene is abject but arousing, the same way that the chest cavity scene in cronenberg's 1983 videodrome is: we're horrified, but we cannot look away. mortensen's body is so vulnerable during the whole scene, so starkly naked in contrast to his attackers, and the way they touch each other feels insanely homoerotic: choking, hair pulling, heavy breathing as nikolai forces a man's head down onto a knife, face to face as the light drains from his eyes. it's beautiful and disgusting all at once. everything i love in a cronenberg movie.

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about meeee :3

this blog is gonna be a place for me to review things like movies, books, shows, whatever i want (because it's my blog and not yours)

my name's dio, i use he/they, i'm a butch lesbian. my favourite movie is saw (2004) and my favourite book is penance by eliza clark. i love everything horror and especially gross out/torture porn/disturbing horror, so that's your preliminary warning for this blog hehe. my favourite shows atm are succession, interview with the vampire and true detective. i'm studying film and media so i have pretentious takes, sorry not sorry.

enjoy yr stay!!!